Lagoons and Wilderness

"We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope."

 - Edward Abbey

Everywhere we went, Arctic and Aleutian Terns enthralled us with their beauty...
(Click picture to enlarge)

I love anything that eats their weight in bugs each day!

Our journey starts at Anigaaq – a small ranger cabin on the coastal edge of Cape Krusenstern National Monument. We are here to work with the Native Village of Kotzebue and National Park Service to better understand how coastal lagoons work – and most importantly the importance of food security for the fish themselves, their predators, and the local villagers who rely on whitefish, salmon, and sheefish for their own sustenance.

Anigaaq ranger cabin and outhouse with a view

Krusenstern lagoon is bordered by an amazing wetland filled with trumpeter swans, sand hill cranes, and a myriad of other waterbirds, waders, and shorebirds. It’s a National Park Unit that is remote enough to preclude visitation by most, but is a wonder of life, history, and beauty.

The 1.5 hour daily commute up the Anigaaq channel to get to Krusenstern Lagoon

Trevor and Marguerite lavaging a Sheefish - a method that allows us to see what the fish eat and release them back into the wild alive. This is one of the most important local food fish - Inconnu as it's called in Kotzebue.

After a few days at Krusenstern, we move about 40 miles north by small boat to work at Kotlik Lagoon. The gentle roar of the outflowing tide meeting the sea in a line of breaking waves is constant at our small camp. The narrow entrance to Kotlik Lagoon is lined with gravel and bordered with tundra filled with purple,magenta and yellow flowers. I was told to never forget to look at those flowers - often diminutive compared to the charismatic wildlife, but always beautiful.

Our Camp at Kotlik Lagoon
(Click picture to enlarge)

Starry flounder and saffron cod stir the shallows, probably eating the same mysids as the Arctic terns that casually leave their small colony and flit back and forth over the entrance, delicately stooping to the water to feed.

A seal, probably bearded, visited last night and this morning a cow and calf grey whale loll in the shallows for a few hours – only 10 meters from shore. They roll over and over and spy hop constantly. Another adult follows an hour later, but leaves as well. Then it's just the black-legged kittiwakes, mew gulls and terns that feed in the shallows and tide rips of our camp on the edge of Alaska.

A young gray whale surfaces for a look...

Parasitic and Pomarine jaegers sit casually around, lifting off periodically to harass a gull or tern until it drops their hard-won food to the ground. They then land and swallow the morsel in one smooth and almost instantaneous motion.

Pomarine Jaeger cruising the shoreline looking for trouble to make...

Musk oxen do nothing fast - this thinking moment went on for 5 hours

A couple of young bears had passed through yesterday, evidenced by their tracks, but we saw them later in the day moving away from camp. A pair of musk oxen sidle slowly to the end of the beach and then went to sleep to ponder their next moves. Sleeping in the edge of the term colony causes a ruckus; the terns scream their “Kack Kack!” and go sit nearby staring at the neanderthal looking goat relatives in the hopes they would leave – that didn’t happen for another two days!

Black Turnstones and semi-palmated plovers dither along the water’s edge and a Pacific loon plaintively calls from just offshore. A few pairs of eiders or a small flock of scoters fly past once in a while.

Black Turnstones among the gravel

When it's not the bugs, it's the bears!

There’s  a steady wind from the north keeping the bugs down – we all agree that this is a good place for the soul. It's a joy to be out on the edge of Alaska with good people. Backed by the blue of a summer's sky, puffy cumulus line the tops of the inland hills; the wind has pulled them into parallel lines of wispy cirrus here on the coast. Out to sea the fog builds and will ultimately keep us waiting for our pick-up flight for an extra day - not too hard a deal, given the company and place!


"Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless."

- Edward Abbey

Heading home in the trusty 185 on floats